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HURRICANE -- As fire crews work to contain a fire in southern Utah, Gov. Gary Herbert is urging all of us to be especially careful with anything that might start a fire.
The danger is in the fine fuels, like grasses that have already dried out. A spark and a breeze and a fire can take off.
A year ago, flood danger was the fear, but fire danger intensified quickly this spring.
"The public just needs to use common sense, be aware of the tinder-like conditions out there," Gov. Herbert said. "It's going to be a dry summer. It's going to be a challenge with wildland fires more than it was last year."
There have already been more than 120 fires this year.
"Virtually all of them have been human-caused, which means they were all preventable," Jason Curry with the Utah Division of Forestry said. "Things are very dry, you can see it. And judging by the fire behavior that I've seen so far this year, it's very extreme, a lot more active than we've had the last couple of years."
The biggest worries are:
- Campfires
- Debris fires
- Fireworks
- Off-road vehicles, which can spark fires from a fuel leak, or even parking on dry grass. Putting out fires is expensive, too. Utah spent more than $2 million fighting wildfires last year, and that was a low year. "We can replace houses; we can't replace lives. So, it's a public safety issue, and all of us have a role to play. We can always all help," Gov. Herbert said. To prevent fires, make sure you don't have a lot of dead fuels around your home; you want to have defensible space.
